Part 24 (2/2)
In a moment the great door opened and the attendant and another man ran out, but almost the next instant Sally, straining her ears, heard the rush and sweep of a fleet horse that seemed to scud like the wind, and--her Fairy Prince was free!
”There he goes! And I helped him!” gasped Sally, hugging her own young breast and quivering in every limb.
The men looked right and left and listened, half deceived by the sound.
At last, far down the road, they saw horse and man, but going at a pace it were mere folly to strive to overtake.
”We cannot catch him, and if we could he would defend himself now,” said the man who had guarded Lionel, in a voice of anger and concern. ”Woe the day! What will Sir Percival say?”
”His orders were that not an instant was he to be out of our sight,”
said the other man. ”One or the other of us was to be on the watch.”
”And he was not out of my sight,” said the first man. ”I only left his side a moment before to look at the weatherc.o.c.k, and he stood alone just where I left him as I turned back. We came through the doorway together, then he pushed me fairly over and ran away. Woe the day! I shall lose both respect and reward.”
”How in the name of Great Caesar could he have gotten a message about the horse?” asked the second man. ”I have seen no one around.”
”Nor have I,” was the reply. ”Beshrew me, but I could half believe the Fairies or the witches have been about! It is a mystery indeed.”
He added, gloomily:
”Now I must acquaint Sir Percival of what hath happened, and, by my faith, I had rather take a ducking or show a broken limb.”
It seemed to Sally that the men would never be done looking about, peering here and there, but keeping near the house, as if bent on finding some one who had helped Lionel's escape. It was not until the middle of the morning that they went into the barn; then, with many a halt, she finally let herself down from the tree, but only to hide behind another.
Sally was thankful when at last she found herself in the road after creeping from one cover to another. Then, with a slouching step, she moved more rapidly away.
For a long time she kept steadily on, then, at a great field she was pa.s.sing, an ox team, loaded with marshy gra.s.s, came toward the road.
”Might I cotch a ride?” she said to the man who was guiding the oxen.
”Tired, are ye?” called the man.
”Tired I'll be afore I gets to Homeview,” said Sally.
Homeview was a plantation near Williamsburg.
”Get ye up then,” said the man. ”I goes far as Humphrey Three Corners, that's all.”
By walking and begging many a mile's ride, and also by begging two or three cups of milk, Sally reached Parson Kendall's near supper time, as hungry and f.a.gged a maiden as one would wish to see.
She managed to enter the porch and hang up the coat and hat without being seen by any of the parson's family. Then she started for the library, but met the parson in the hall.
”Whither away, maiden?” cried the parson, sternly.
”I would have speech with thee in the library,” said Sally, rather faintly.
”And I would have speech with _thee_!” the parson replied.
Not a word spake good Parson Kendall while Sally told her story.
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